xTuple Expands, Updates Cloud Service Offerings

A QuickStart wizard and xTuple Desktop, a loadable package that is customizable and allows users to create their own favorite places in the application, are among the expanded features the company announced.

xTuple, a provider of commercial open source business management
software for small to medium-size businesses, announced the release of
the latest version of the company's flagship product and the expansion
of the xTuple Cloud service. New features of the open source ERP
software include a QuickStart Wizard for improved system set up
configuration and an xTuple Desktop interface with sample graphical
workflows for sales, CRM, accounting, purchasing, and manufacturing.
Expanded features and enhancements include xTuple Desktop, a loadable
package that is customizable and allows users to create their own
favorite places in the application, as well as customized workflows for
defined business processes and summary dashboards of key business
metrics. Another upgrade is the QuickStart Wizard, an add-in package
that complements the Desktop with a guide for setting up a company from
scratch. It is available for purchase on the xTuple xChange for $30 for
users with locally installed databases. It is also included with the
xTuple Cloud service at no additional charge.

xTuple PostBooks is the free open source offering, which is aimed at
small businesses. xTuple Standard is a midrange commercial offering,
which adds inventory control, warehousing, and other features to the
core package. xTuple Manufacturing is the company's most advanced
commercial offering, which is aimed at manufacturing companies in both
discrete and batch process production, make to order, make to stock, or
mixed-mode, and job shops and engineer-to-order.

Existing xTuple users can also elect to move their onsite database to
the cloud. Red Wolf LLC, a provider of contract assembly,
machining, and fabrication services, said they would be migrating its
current five-user Manufacturing database to the xTuple Cloud
service. "As a small business with limited IT resources, we're
happy to have our xTuple business software run in a reliable cloud
environment," said Red Wolf president Kim Sutton. "We have seen
significant improvements in our business since initially implementing
xTuple, and look forward to continued success with this new service."
xTuple Cloud Service also enables users across all three editions of
the software to run their database in the cloud via Amazon Elastic
Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). Recently, xTuple also announced the
release of the xTuple Web Portal and the Time and Expense add-in
package. The Web Portal enables xTuple users to utilize their website
to work directly with customers, suppliers, or other business
partners. The Time and Expense package provides companies with
project accounting functionality by integrating billing and vouchering
for professional services.

"Today's release makes our solution significantly more accessible to
small to midsized businesses without major internal IT resources. The
software is easier to use, less intimidating and more accessible for
the average user," said xTuple CEO Ned Lilly. "Life beyond QuickBooks
doesn't have to be hard."

Nathan Eddy is Associate Editor, Midmarket, at eWEEK.com. Before joining eWEEK.com, Nate was a writer with ChannelWeb and he served as an editor at FierceMarkets. He is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.